about what used to be in 1992, that you can say: "Well, I was at the White House and I talked to the President. He remembered a good many combats, a few offensives that he engaged in, and he remembered two wars. But I have lived my life and I haven't known any." If I could have my wish this morning, that would be my wish. I think that you young people perhaps hold that within your grasp. I remember in World War II they told us that these beardless youngsters couldn't equal the task of the 50,000 planes a year that President Roosevelt had promised. But the scientists and the workmen produced the planes, the beardless youngsters learned how to fly them, and our peace was preserved. What we pray today is that we won't have to fly those planes—we'll have them, we'll be prepared; we won't have to call those youngsters out of the high schools and the colleges-but rather than yield our liberty, we I would be glad for the members of this group to come into the office and just visit individually with me a little bit if you would like. NOTE: The President spoke at 12:57 p.m. in the Cabinet Room at the White House. In his opening words he referred to Dr. Donald F. Hornig, Special Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Science and Technology, Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana, Dr. Leonard Carmichael, President of Science Service, Dr. Glen T. Seaborg, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Dr. Watson Davis, Director of Science Service, and Dale McFeatters, Vice President for Information Services, Westinghouse Electric Corporation. The group included 40 high school seniors from 21 States who were winners in the Science Talent Search, sponsored by Westinghouse Electric Corporation and Science Service. They were in Washington to attend the Science Talent Institute, held February 24-March 1, and to receive the Westinghouse science scholarships and awards. 89 Remarks Before the National Conference on Educational Legislation. March 1, 1965 Commissioner Keppel, President Edinger, Dr. Carr, Dr. McKay, my fellow educators: "Human history," H. G. Wells once wrote, "becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." You and I cannot be indifferent to the outcome of that race. We care deeply about the winner. Because we do care so deeply about the winner, that is why we are all in the East Room of the White House today. I don't think that I need to tell you how important to the outcome of that race is the education legislation that is now before the Congress. I hope that it is important enough that most of you have studied it in detail. I hope that you understand that it represents the very best thinking that the leading educators of this country can produce. Way back last summer I asked some of the most outstanding educational minds in this Nation to tackle this problem. I gave them a single instruction: find out how we can best invest each education dollar so that it will do the most good. Your support and the support of every leading education group proves that they did their job better than I had hoped, because for the first time we have succeeded in finding goals which unite us rather than divide us. The experts spent a great deal of time and study working out a formula which would be fair to every State and fair to every county and fair to every child, and would put the education dollar where that dollar is needed most, now. We decided that our first job was to help the schools serving the children from the very lowest income groups. Those families constitute the number one burden, the number one burden in this Nation on the school systems. We know that they cannot bear their share of the taxes to help pay for their education. And unless those children get a good education we know that they become dropouts and they become delinquents and they become taxeaters instead of taxpayers. We know that they will join the unemployed. That is why we put top priority on breaking the vicious cycle that today threatens the future. of 5 million children in this great land of opportunity which we talk about so much. The Johnson administration's continuing concern is for improved educational opportunity for all children in this land. Now you can keep your blood pressure down if you want to. You can sit in your rocking chair and talk about the days that have gone by if you choose. But as far as I am concerned, I am going to use every rostrum and every forum and every searchlight that I can to tell the people of this country and their elected representatives that we can no longer afford overcrowded classrooms. and half-day sessions. We just must not, we just cannot afford the great waste that comes from the neglect of a single child. We have made an important beginning, but we must not waiver now that the prospect of success is so close. As I said in my educational message to the Congress—and I hope you will bear with me if I quote a bit of it: "Nothing matters more to the future of our country. Not our military prepared ness-we spend over 50 billion a year for that; armed power is worthless if we lack the brain power to build a world of peace. Not our productive economy, for we cannot sustain growth without trained manpower. Not our democratic system of government, for freedom is fragile if citizens are ignorant." I don't know how the final record will look. But I do know that I am proud of this democracy and I do genuinely believe that education is its guardian and is its steward, and that a trained mind is the best possible insurance premium we can buy to preserve our freedoms and our liberties and to keep us from being slaves. I have said this before and I am not going to bore those of you that may have read it or heard it by any long statements on it, but I came from a family that is interested in public life and in education. My mother was a teacher and my father was a teacher. My great grandfather, my mother's grandfather, was the second president of Baylor University when it was located down at Washington on the Brazos. In 1857 he brought General Houston-Sam Houstoninto the Baptist Church and General Houston made him a loan of $300 at 8 percent interest. And so 4 or 5 years later he sent him the note and asked him to renew it because there hadn't been anything paid on it. That's the problem teachers had in those days. I left college as a sophomore to become the principal of a six-teacher school and I drew the magnificent, munificent salary of $125 a month! Now we are entrusting the future of the world to people who are prepared and trained and capable of earning $125 a month-at least we were then. We have improved the situation some now. I don't know what will be written about my administration-nothing really seems to go right from early in the morning till late at night. And if they do and something someone approves of almost accidentally, they say but don't expect me to tell you. I may have to say something about Secretary McNamara or Secretary Rusk some day on the floor. On the other hand, I rather think that there is less to divide us now than there has been at any time since I have been in Washington, and I have been here 34 years. I believe there is really more to unite us now. Whether we are Republicans or Democrats or what-nots, independents, we all love what that flag stands for and we love the system that is provided for us. We may become slightly intemperate at times and intolerant of others that may not agree with us. I try never to be. I don't know of anything that I have said about an individual since I have been President. Sometimes late at night when I am tired and I read what someone has said about me during the day, I am inclined to respond. But I would hope that it would be said of this decade, if not of this administration, so far as the ancient enemies of mankind are concerned and those ancient enemies are ignorance, illiteracy, ill health, and diseaseI hope you will help me. I hope you will pledge me. I hope you will get up out of that chair and go do something about it in your own way. I hope that you will have it written for your children and your grandchildren to see, when they take the roster that is here today: so far as those ancient enemies are concerned-ignorance-we came, we saw, we conquered! The education bill we picked out can be improved. The T-Model Ford could be improved and has been. The first train. that ran from Fredericksburg, a little town. I lived close to, went to San Antonio-it has been improved a great deal. But I remember the story that they told about it the day it took off-from one of the founding fathers. He said, "Well, they will never get her started, and if they do they will never get her stopped." Now we have people that could improve this or that. When I was a boy growing up we never had these issues of our relations with other nations so much. We didn't wake up with Viet-Nam and have Cyprus for lunch and the Congo for dinner. All we knew, because the folks that kind of molded the opinion and contributed to the political atmosphere, they kept us debating whether we were wet or dry, whether we were prohibitionists or antiprohibitionists! And the fact that one teacher had seven grades to teach in a school that was falling down and a lady that was underpaid-I had my teacher. I sent her money to come here from California the other day for my inauguration, because she held me in her lap when I was 4 years old, and she taught seven grades (we have baby sitters to do that now). But we debated whether we were wet or dry! Later when I was in high school and college we talked about whether we were Klan or anti-Klanand we chased them all around the country back and forth. I am glad in our time we are talking about how to improve the soul and improve the mind and improve the body and to live and learn and expand and wipe away all of these ancient curses. Why, if we could find the answer to heart disease and to strokes and to cancer we'd save 32 billion a year and this whole education bill hasn't got but a billion two hundred million. Now some of them are going to say if it is a billion two hundred million this year, it will be more next year. Well, it will be! Because I am not going to be proud to be President of the richest nation in the world when there are hundreds of thousands and millions of children that can't read and write. I am not going to be proud of a nation where disease is still rampant and many children live out a crippled life because they don't have adequate medical care in time. We are going to improve our education. We are going to improve our medicine and our medical care. We are going to improve the economic condition of our people. We are going to live under the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And if you go take a trip with me to the simms of this city, or if you go to my hometown and walk 6 blocks from the capitoi of the State of Texas, you will see what I am talking about I went there one day-on Christmas when my wife and children were away and I couldn't be with them-and I saw 119 people using a single cutdoor toilet in the center of a metropolitan area. I saw 119 peopie drinking water from a hydrant that was located centrally. I walked into their little hovels and I saw a father dying with tuberculosis and three or four little children there around him that were out of school because they didn't have clothes to wear and food to eat and taking the tuberculosis very likely that their daddy had That is something we can't be proud of and that is something your teachers can't be proud of I remember I asked my teachers, in my first year of teaching to get out and have super sed plan activity. I had a little Mexi can school. And wie dey'd at to was go to the bathroom and smoke during recess. And I said: "You take the north corner. And you take the south one. And you take the east coe. And you take the west coe And let's have roller batt And I took my own first pay check and bought a volleyball for them and bought a playground softball for them and had some dancing for them out there and some musical instruments to eatertain them during recess-these poor peo ple that lived down on the border of Texas. I never have understood it, but the Mexican people have been voting for me ever since. They understand. Finally one day after I came in one Saturday morning, the school superintendent (he was a Mr. Donahe, he lives down in Flores ville Texas aow, he's retired, he came to me and said I am in trouble. He said, Every one of your teachers strack on you." And I said, "What is the mate?" "WE" be said they don't ke the supervised play activity. One of them was the sister of the mayor, another coe was the sister of the postmaster and they kind of bad is pretty good-very afuential frends around town One of them was the daughter of one of the important men, one of the bankers, And he said. "They caned to me while you were of supervising the formall for the bigh school yesterday. They aled so me and they said they bad sak" I said, Waz e vi bi be sand. The Leading lady the was priemen for them said Car traces are down and baked my administration-nothing really seems to go right from early in the morning till late at night. And if they do and something someone approves of almost accidentally, they say but don't expect me to tell you. I may have to say something about Secretary McNamara or Secretary Rusk some day on the floor. On the other hand, I rather think that there is less to divide us now than there has been at any time since I have been in Washington, and I have been here 34 years. I believe there is really more to unite us now. Whether we are Republicans or Democrats or what-nots, independents, we all love what that flag stands for and we love the system that is provided for us. We may become slightly intemperate at times and intolerant of others that may not agree with us. I try never to be. I don't know of anything that I have said about an individual since I have been President. Sometimes late at night when I am tired and I read what someone has said about me during the day, I am inclined to respond. But I would hope that it would be said of this decade, if not of this administration, so far as the ancient enemies of mankind are concerned and those ancient enemies are ignorance, illiteracy, ill health, and diseaseI hope you will help me. I hope you will pledge me. I hope you will get up out of that chair and go do something about it in your own way. I hope that you will have it written for your children and your grandchildren to see, when they take the roster that is here today: so far as those ancient enemies are concerned-ignorance-we came, we saw, we conquered! The education bill we picked out can be improved. The T-Model Ford could be improved and has been. The first train that ran from Fredericksburg, a little town I lived close to, went to San Antonio-it has been improved a great deal. But I remember the story that they told about it the day it took off-from one of the founding fathers. He said, "Well, they will never get her started, and if they do they will never get her stopped." Now we have people that could improve this or that. When I was a boy growing up we never had these issues of our relations with other nations so much. We didn't wake up with Viet-Nam and have Cyprus for lunch and the Congo for dinner. All we knew, because the folks that kind of molded the opinion and contributed to the political atmosphere, they kept us debating whether we were wet or dry, whether we were prohibitionists or antiprohibitionists! And the fact that one. teacher had seven grades to teach in a school that was falling down and a lady that was underpaid-I had my teacher. I sent her money to come here from California the other day for my inauguration, because she held me in her lap when I was 4 years old, and she taught seven grades (we have baby sitters to do that now). But we debated whether we were wet or dry! Later when I was in high school and college we talked about whether we were Klan or anti-Klanand we chased them all around the country back and forth. I am glad in our time we are talking about how to improve the soul and improve the mind and improve the body and to live and learn and expand and wipe away all of these ancient curses. Why, if we could find the answer to heart disease and to strokes and to cancer we'd save 32 billion a year and this whole education bill hasn't got but a billion two hundred million. Now some of them are going to say if it is a billion two hundred million this year, it will be more next year. Well, it will be! Because I am not going to be proud to be |